Wave

‘Did he wave? I think he waved….’

Maude’s steering suffered a little as she did a double-take while passing the shop-front.

The girls persisted with their rendition of a Queen classic – stamping their feet and clapping to a perfectly wrong tempo:

‘We will, we will ROCK YOU!’

I was in the back with Aurora – as she took her hairband off and head-banged a little.

‘Casta, bet you can’t do this while you’re singing?’

‘Anyway’, I asked, ‘what does a wave from the man who runs the village chip-shop signify – that you’ve arrived, that you’re ‘in’? Or do you just want extra batter scraps on your next chip supper?’

Aurora found that my thigh delivered a resounding beat when she slapped it:

‘You got mud on your face, you big butthead!’

‘It’s ‘disgrace’ – that’s rude and it doesn’t rhyme’.

‘I waved’, said Maude, ‘because I like to get along with people.’

The girls stopped singing for a moment and chortled a little. I urged Aurora to start up again and offered my thigh.

‘I don’t know why you’ve all gone quiet. I do prefer to get along with people – it’s nice to be nice.’

Casta began to improvise:

‘We will, we will rocky rock you!’

‘Anyway, you of all people should keep in with local businessmen – you might get a job. No point in tweeting the few arts people you didn’t directly offend every now and again – they’re no use to you.’

‘I know that, but when I said I’d taken a laminated cv into the chip-shop last week, I was joking.’